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Heavy Frigate
"Designed originally as a third-rate of sixty-four guns, she had been cut down to her present seize by the removal of most of her upper deck and corresponding armament. But her forty twenty-four pounders remained, with an additional four eighteen-pounders for bow and stern-chasers." —Alexander Kent, For My Country's Freedom In game Vital stats Heavy Frigate/Ultima Ratio|Ultima Ratio Overall strategy While somewhat slow and yet extremely durable, this wooden warship is a Frigate, but only in name and appearance, with itwo decks of guns, and is the workhorse of mid-game European fleets. In contrast to the earlier Galleon, the Heavy Frigate is larger and more streamlined, granting it a higher armour rating and fire rate, compared to its vintage predecessor, as well as modest speed, allowing it to catch up with the real Frigates in play. Use this ship to have the final word in battle either by supporting your lighter Frigates, or raking the foe's own with superheated leaden spheres, and remember to keep anti-ship vessels such as Fire Vessels, ''Hellebrander'' and Rocket Boats as far away from them as possible, and you will be the lord of the waves in no time. Unit summary *Powerful heavy ship with increased rate of fire, built to attain surface marine superiority. *Has +1 armour and a few more hitpointsand higher rate of fire compared to Man of War. Notes While this unit is an upgrade of BOTH the Man of War AND the Frigate in Rise of the Moderns, it is treated as a replacement in the heavy ship slot for various factions' warships in Rise of Napoleon: Ultima Ratio, and will not require military research. History A frigate was a collective term for any ship that was lightly armed, full-masted, and had quick maneuverability, and primarily intended for interception duty and patrol work while holding on to some degree of firepower, in comparison to the.multi-decked ship of the line which were meant to perform fleet actions. However, advancements in ballistics, engineering and nautical science eventually resulted in the construction of vessels (through chance or design) which had an armament and constution well in excess of these requirements, and frigates were well considered medium- to heavy-strength naval assets at the close of the Napoleonic Wars in the mid 1810s CE. The first true modern frigate in the sense of the word traces her ancestry to a French warship christened Medée in the 1740s CE. This was a ship with a less pronounced profile (because boarding and melee actions were no longer seen as important as naval gunnery), but packed a more advanced sailplan and was dedicated primarily to the task of waging war. This streamlined pattern however wasn't just restricted to building medium-level warships: "heavy" frigates, consisting of larger vessels using the same streamlined pattern yet hosting more armaments were also considered as well. The height of frigate construction came in the 19th century with the emergence of USS Constitution, one of the first warships ever to be fully designed in the United States. One of six frigates commissioned by the fledgling United States under the designation of heavy frigate, Constitution was very revolutionary for her time, as the United States had intended to build a war vessel that was heavily armed and strong, yet fast enough to outrun the stronger but slower armed vessels hosted by European navies of the late 18th century. Another way that "heavy" frigates could also be obtained was to have severely damaged galleons and ships of the line "repaired", where they then became a variant of frigate known as a razée (French for "cut down", "razed" or "shaved") because a multideck vessel could be renovated, losing all but her lowest gun decks (assuming it was still intact), and the resulting warship would be lighter, yet perhaps larger and stronger than other "frigates". The most renowned of these such vessels was HMS'' Indefatiguable''. Originally meant to bear 64 guns on three decks,'' Indefatiguable'' was outclassed by French ships bearing at least 74, and was subsequently "razeed" to 44 guns to two decks, and henceforth served with distinction in many actions against France and the United States over a period of more than two decades. Category:Heavy ships